Editor’s Note: Since November 2018, Joe has been publishing picks here and back at All Things NIT, our former site. Overall, the results have been mixed, with an average return on investment, per pick, of –0.6% when weighting by confidence (1 for low, 2 for medium, 3 for high) across 5,099 published picks, not including pending futures, and an average return on investment, per pick, of +3.1% across 1,617 completed high and medium-confidence picks (low confidence picks, these days, are in experimental markets for us).
Use these picks at your own risk. Only you are responsible for any money you lose, and you should not bet more than you can afford to lose. If you’re afraid you might have a gambling problem, seek help.
Odds for these come the better option between Bovada and BetOnline. We used to use the Vegas Consensus, but it’s no longer consistently available in an accurate form online. FanGraphs is heavily used in making MLB picks.
One MLB moneyline today, two MLB futures. We’re not sure yet when we’ll do our college football futures for this week, but it isn’t today. Here’s the context on each market.
Single-game MLB bets: On the season, we’re 86–57–4, we’re up 22.02 units, we’re up 15% (the average line on our winners has been –109). We’re looking for our eleventh straight win today.
MLB futures: We began the season with 750 units in our MLB futures portfolio, with the intent being to spend 500 of those over the regular season and keep 250 in reserve for the postseason and/or hedging & arbitrage opportunities. This is circular, because we use FanGraphs probabilities to guide our picks, but if we use FanGraphs probabilities and include today’s plays, our mean expected return on the 750 units (based on what we’ve bet so far) is 71.86 units, or 9.6%.
San Diego @ St. Louis
There’s nothing that meets our parameters on today’s board, and nothing we particularly like. We are, though, riding that 10-game winning streak, and so we’re trying to find a win, and we’re willing to pay an expensive price.
Of the big favorites tonight, the Blue Jays used a ton of bullpen this weekend and are facing a hot Nationals team, the Orioles lost Félix Bautista and seem rattled by it, Atlanta played a Sunday night game and then flew to Colorado, and the Mariners bet is tricky because the A’s might use an opener and push some bets. This one, though, is promising, because for as overvalued as we think Blake Snell is and for as concerning as the Padres are, Adam Wainwright has been struggling like few other pitchers in baseball.
Over the month of August, Wainwright has made four starts, lasted fewer than fifteen innings in total and allowing 24 earned runs. There’s probably some bad luck in there, but on the season, his FIP is 6.02 and his xERA is 7.63, nearly a run higher than the next-worst with at least 60 innings pitched. The Cardinals are trying to get him his 199th and 200th wins, but that is looking improbable. The Adam Wainwright story is ending, and we’re going to try to make some units off of it.
Pick: San Diego to win –196. Low confidence. (Snell and Wainwright must start.)
World Series
We’re doubling up on this one. It’s the first time we’ve seen value on the Astros in the World Series market all year, and we don’t want to let it get away. By no means does this make Houston one of our preferred World Series champions, but it does help lessen some of that liability, and the value is solid. FanGraphs’s probabilities have the eROI on this at 11%, and that’s with their model expecting Wander Franco to return soon, a dubious expectation with major impact.
There was a lot of value out there today, so hopefully markets don’t move too much before tomorrow.
Pick: Houston to win +850. Medium confidence.
Pick: Houston to win +850. Medium confidence.
